


Magia Iskra

by Writing Cafe (emberblack)



Category: teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Slow Burn, Spark!Stiles, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2018-12-20 10:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11919402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emberblack/pseuds/Writing%20Cafe
Summary: Stiles and Scott had made a blood pact with each other when they were ten, right when both of their lives were falling apart.  Stiles wasn't about to abandon it now, when Scott had been missing for a full week.  It was high time he took his best friends rescue into his own hands.





	1. Chapter 1

Mieczyslaw Stilinski was born with a very particular set of moles on his left shoulder. The doctor looked back at the nurses behind him, a tight look on his face. Claudia tensed, gripping John’s hand tightly. “Your son is a spark,”He told her in a reverent whisper. Claudia’s hand relaxed minutely, but John seemed to grip hers even tighter at the acclimation. 

Magic was dwindling in the world, the need for it slowly fading away as technology became more and more advanced. Sparks were the few who actually had enough magic inside of them to do more than magic tricks. Legends were often told of times in the past few centuries when Sparks had been called upon to save the world from one destruction or another. John could hardly believe the words, his baby boy would have to handle all of that alone one day. 

Claudia, on the other hand, was quietly relieved that it was all that had stalled the doctor before he handed the squirming child over. Her own magic was more than what was considered the normal. While she had never considered this as a possibility when she had conceived, she also knew that there were far worse things to give birth to. She brushed light fingertips over the wrinkly red face. It would be fine, she promised the amber eyes silently. She would be there to help him with his magic as he grew. 

Mieczyslaw was a perfect baby, hardly ever crying and content to watch everything around him. Both parents were happy how quickly he slept through the night. That changed when he became a toddler and started walking. He was curious about everything, and determined to find it out one way or another. Even if his parent’s had explicitly told him not to touch. Claudia spent countless hours chasing after him with a smile on her lips. John, now a deputy, chased after him a little more harried. They found out fairly early that the magic in Mieczyslaw’s veins made him a little too energetic. Claudia was able to teach her son little magic tricks that helped settle him, and John did his very best to replicate his wife’s success. But with no magic in him, he made an awful mentor in magic. 

When Mieczyslaw had finally tired himself out, he spent hours outside watching his mother do what magic she could. Her magic was rooted in the ground, and she taught him how to care for the flowers both with and without magic. She often told him that it wasn’t as satisfying to gain something through magic, that the blood and sweat that went into a task made it that much more satisfying. "But that doesn't mean that magic is wrong. In fact, it's a very special gift, Mieczyslaw. But you should always do something with your hands, first.” And so Mieczyslaw spent more days than not learning how to do things by hand. Claudia figured she could teach Mieczyslaw how to use his magic later. 

But it was not to be. When Mieczyslaw was ten, Claudia passed away. His father did the best he could, but between having to pay hospital bills and grieving his wife he was at work probably a little too much. Especially with a ten year old boy. Mieczyslaw became Stiles, too distraught at hearing the name that his mother had given him. Stiles spent a lot of time at the station, the deputies and dispatchers doting on him and keeping an eye on him. The nights he wasn’t at the station, he was with his best friend, Scott, and his mother Melissa. John would always be thankful for the single mom, and how she helped him those first few difficult years. 

Scott’s father had left right around that time as well, and both children had bonded even more over the loss of their parents. They would spend hours in a blanket fort trading secrets like promises in the dark. One night, under Melissa’s tired nose, Stiles snuck a kitchen knife into Scott’s bedroom. He sliced a cut into his palm and a matching one into Scott’s. “Blood brothers,” he whispered, pressing their palms together. “A promise that we won’t leave each other.” Scott had grinned toothily and promised without hesitation. 

\--

15 years later

Things were turning to shit. Stiles had a bad feeling about Argent Corp ever since he had met Allison’s creepy grandpa at Grandparent’s day in fifth grade. Even then, he was talking about his business to anyone who would listen. Including Stiles, who he had apparently ‘felt bad for’ since his grandparent’s lived in Poland and there wasn’t much of a point for them to fly in just for Grandparents day when they were going to come that summer. 

Now, he was sitting tiredly in the police station, looking up whenever one of the deputies walked by him. He was getting increasingly frustrated when all he got were sympathetic shakes of their heads. He hadn’t seen his father in several days. And honestly, the way things were going, he was surprised that they were still allowed to investigate Scott’s ‘disappearance.’ Stiles knew who had taken him. Gerard had not hidden his despise of Scott ever since Allison had first brought him home as her boyfriend back in sophomore year of high school. And Scott had disappeared right after Allison had announced their engagement at Thanksgiving. Stiles knew his dad was doing his best, but there was only so much a law abiding Sheriff could do. 

So Stiles decided to take things into his own hands. He waved to his father, who was hunched over his desk, and murmured that he was going to go home to get some rest. He hunched his shoulders once he had left the station, getting into his old jeep and feeling guilty the whole ride home. But, if he was going to save Scott, there were sacrifices to be made. And the honesty with his father was going to be one of them. 

Once he got home, he immediately went up to the attic, digging through the old books he hadn’t touched after his mother had died. While he was young, she had gathered all of the information she could about Sparks. He had skimmed through a few of her journals before, but being so young he hadn’t really paid much attention to it. He knew he had read about another Spark that had been around this area, now all he had to do was find the reference again. He stayed up all night reading through his mother’s journals, feeling his chest ache every time she diverted from the information to record little stories about their days. It was almost eight in the morning by the time he had found the Spark he was looking for. 

“Derek Hale,” he murmured to himself, feeling the shape of the name in his mouth. He sifted through the articles that were piled in a box to find more information than what Claudia had written. ‘A sad story,’ was all she had written in the journal, alongside the name of a town a few hours over. When he finally found the article, he took it downstairs, setting it on the table and making a pot of coffee to try and keep the exhaustion at bay. He couldn’t quite bring himself to read the article yet, deciding he needed to feel a little more awake first. He took his time making coffee, letting a little bit of magic bleed out into the cup, just enough to amplify the liquid into more energy. 

Not having anything else to distract him with, he sat down and started reading the newspaper. A sad story had been an understatement. It had seemed like this Spark’s entire family had been burned to the ground. They had never found out who did it, their tracks covered too well. Derek was the only one left out of his family unscathed. He stilled, bleeding a little extra magic into the newspaper and watching the text dance before his eyes. Sighing heavily, he scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe the exhaustion and sorrow from his mind as he weighed his decision. 

Shaking his head, he went upstairs to pack. He packed essentials only, even digging out an old hunting knife one of his polish relatives had given him as a teen. He quickly pressed some magic into the blade, to move swifter and cut deeper. He also unlocked the gun safe in his father’s office and pulled out the gun he had learned to shoot with. The gun seemed to almost jump in his hands, the familiar magic that he had worn into the grip that ensured a straighter bullet warming under his hands. He kept thinking about what his father would think when he came home and Stiles wasn’t here. He’d immediately notice the things missing from his room, his favorite red hoodie, the picture of his mom he kept on his nightstand, the thin layer of dust disturbed on the gun safe. 

Steeling himself, he carried his backpack out to his car. After stuffing his things into the trunk, he absently patted his jeep, feeling his magic spark and run down the frame of the car. He took a long look at his home before backing out of the driveway. “Just a few hours, and then I'm there.” He muttered to himself. He watched his hometown slowly pass into his rearview mirror. The highway looked all the same, just miles and miles of road stretched out in front of him. 

Two hours into the drive, he heard his car splutter and he groaned. “No, no, come on. Don’t do this to me.” He pulled over on the side of the road, getting out and pulling up the hood to take a look at her. Immediately he found the source, a little piece of plastic melting by his fuse box. “Seriously dad? A lojack?” Stiles rolled his eyes and dropped his hood. Rounding the car, he pulled out his backpack and lifted it onto his back. Sighing and giving his jeep a forlorn pat, he started off into the trees. “Can’t be too far away.” He grumbled, pulling out the map he had packed. “Could be useful if I get lost.” He stopped walking staring down at the paper in his hands. His magic pulled at his center before shooting into his hand. Bending down and picking up a pine needle, he rolled it in his hand before he dropped it onto the map. “Where am I?” He whispered, and it shot off to the edge of the forest. Grinning triumphantly, he started off again. 

Things were fine at first, him trudging along the same route as the little wiggly pine needle on his map. Before too long, however, it started raining. The map in his hands was soaking wet, parts of the map running together. He stooped underneath a tree in an attempt to stay a little drier. He did his best to attempt to remember what he could of the map in front of him. The pine needle wasn’t doing much more than twitching on the page now, 

He sighed, shoving the map into his pocket and trudging towards the area that he thought he was supposed to be going. He kept trudging along, the weight of his clothes and the chill in the air making him even more miserable. He was inching down a hill when his foot slid on some moss, and he tumbled down the rest of the way. Landing in a small puddle, only soaking his clothes further, he threw his hands down and just ended up splashing himself further. 

After taking a moment to wallow, quite literally in the mud, he pushed himself to his feet and kept going. “Scott better damn well appreciate me retelling this story every other day.” He grumbled as he pushed on. But the thought of his best friend just made all of his worry for him rear up again. He could have cried when he finally saw the little cabin in the woods. He probably should have looked into Derek Hale a little more before he just set off on this adventure. His feet were killing him, and the light drizzle had completely soaked through his jacket. He felt irrationally angry at the other Spark already. “Seriously, who the hell lived out in the middle of nowhere like this?” He grumbled to himself, hiking down the hill towards the promise of warmth. 

By the time he got up to the door, he was practically fuming at the whole situation. How he had spent the last five hours trekking through this damn forest and how it meant Scott was in Gerard’s hands even longer. How he was covered in mud and practically drenched to the core. He practically busted through the door, stomping up to the man that was staring incredulously at him, a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. “Look, I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking living in the middle of nowhere. I mean, come on, what if someone needs you? Isn’t that how the whole Spark thing works? The world asks and we come running?”

Derek just stared at him, dropping his spoon back into his bowl. “Well, there usually is some asking done. Not people storming into my house and dripping water and mud all over my floor.” He glanced down at the puddle forming at Stiles feet. “Besides, the world’s not in crisis right now?” Derek asked almost hesitantly.

Stiles just glared at him, “I’m in crisis.” He bit out. “I need you to teach me how to use magic and help me save Scott.” Derek gave him an incredulous look before returning to his bowl of cereal. Stiles could feel his magic bubbling under his skin in response to his irritation and he slammed his hands down on the table. His magic ran through the table, taking the bowl and throwing it against the wall with a sharp crashing sound. 

Derek looked at him again, his eyes narrowed this time. “That was my favorite bowl.” He growled out. “Look, just because you are a Spark, or think you’re a Spark, doesn’t mean you can just barge in here and demand me to teach you. We don’t even have the same kind of Spark!” He got up and started picking up pieces of porcelain, pointedly turning his back to Stiles. “Go find someone else, kid.”

Stiles jaw clenched, and he stood there for a moment watching Derek before huffing impatiently and stomping over towards him. He closed his eyes to concentrate and made a sweeping motion with his hands. The shards of the bowl trembled for a moment before slowly piecing themselves back together to form a bow. “I can’t do anything about the milk, dude, but I’m sorry I broke your bowl.” His brown furrowed, “But this is exactly why I need you to help me. I’ve taught myself what I can, but I haven’t had anyone to teach me since Mom-” He flinched when Derek threw a wet rag at him but started cleaning the milk off the wall. Derek was quietly sweeping up bits of cereal off of the floor. “Why don’t you clean all of this up with magic?” 

Derek grunted at him, sweeping the last of the mess into the dustpan. “I told you, we have different Sparks.” Stiles just stared at him until all of a sudden Derek’s face was a lot more hairy. 

“Dude, your eyebrows.” He blurted, a little more concerned with that than the fangs now sporting out of Derek’s mouth. “What the fuck. I thought Sparks could do magic, no one ever said anything like this!” 

Derek rolled his eyes, and just like that his face was back to normal. “I couldn’t teach you magic if I wanted to.” He took the newly reformed bowl back to the kitchen and started making another bowl of cereal. “Which is why you should have thought before just barging in here and demanding things.”

Stiles followed him into the kitchen, frowning. “Well, I’m sorry I was a little irritated after I had to hike out here through all of that crap outside. And besides, Scott’s been missing for a week, and who knows what they’re doing to him. I’ve got to get him back.” 

Derek raised an eyebrow at him, “You hiked here? Like, through the forest? You do know that there’s a road that comes right to the house, right?” 

Stiles huffed, “My car broke down. And it’s not like I could just walk down the side of the road, I would totally be picked up and taken back to the station.” Derek’s eyebrows looked kind of alarmed at that, so Stiles clarified. “I’m not, like, a fugitive. My dad’s the sheriff a few towns over and he’s probably super worried because I just kind of took off to come get Scott?” Stiles glared at the now judging feel coming from Derek. “He wouldn’t have let me go if I told him! And what good is being a Spark if I can’t save my best friend from Argent Corp.” 

Derek suddenly perked up, dropping his spoon and depositing his bowl into the sink. “Argent Corp?” He murmured to himself, frowning down at his shoes for a moment. When he looked back at Stiles, he was determined. “Alright, I’ll come with you to find someone who can train you. And I’ll help out when it comes time to take down Argent Corp.”

“Yeaaah, I don’t think we’ve got time to find another Spark. We’re just going to have to wing it as we go along. I’m sure we can figure it out? Like, you can do at least a little magic, right?” Stiles rambled, already latching onto Derek and practically pulling him towards the rest of the house, trying to find the man’s bedroom. 

The older man shook him off, huffing as he passed him to go to his room, and obediently started packing things. “Do you even know where he is? That it’s them that actually took him?” Stiles opened his mouth to protest, but stopped sheepishly and shaking his head. “So we have time.” He was carefully putting clothes into his bag, ignoring Stiles impatient fidgeting. “I might actually have someone we could go to.” He finished packing his bag and turning towards Stiles. “Come on, I’ll call him in the car.”

Stiles followed him out to the car, stopping to admire it. “Okay, so this is a gorgeous car, and as much as I love it. My dad is really good at his job. You don’t have, like, a car registered to someone else, do you?” He opened the door and started to get in, but stopped when Derek made a strangled noise. He looked at him curiously, and then followed his gaze down at his wet clothes. “Uh, I guess I could try to do something with these?” He reached for the familiar pull of his magic, and just threw it at his clothes. 

They buzzed with it, but they didn’t seem to be drying at all. “That doesn’t . . . smell right.” Derek murmured, looking confused even as he said it. “It should smell, warm I think. And all it does is tickle my nose.”

Stiles just gaped at him. “So what, you got a super sniffer over there, too?” Derek just glared at him, and he rolled his eyes. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll try to manipulate this super complicated stuff over here based on the fact that your nose tells me it’s not warm.” But it did give him an idea. He tried to think of the feeling when he used a hand dryer, the way the air felt against his skin. 

“That smells better.” Derek encouraged, his eyebrows furrowing. Glancing up, Stiles nodded and started pressing his hands against his clothes again. He slowly started feeling his clothes drying and once he was more or less acceptable, he jumped into Derek’s car with a satisfied grin. Derek gave his clothes a critical eye, but started the car nonetheless. Stiles immediately started fiddling with the radio, but stopped soon after a very judging side eye from the man next to him. He dropped his hands into his lap and stared out the window. 

He wondered if his dad had already figured out that Stiles had been upstairs in his mom’s stuff. If he remembered what all was there to know what Stiles had taken. Hopefully it had been long enough that he couldn’t remember. That would at least buy them a little bit of time. Groaning, he sunk into his seat and hunched his shoulders. He really hoped that Derek was telling the truth and not just driving him to a police station. He probably shouldn’t have told him that he thought he’d be picked up if he walked down the side of the road.

Darting a glance out of the corner of his eye, Stiles felt his heart start pounding. He couldn’t afford the delay of being detained and waiting for another opportunity to slip out from his father’s watchful eye again. His magic bubbled up in response to his anxiety, and he absently passed it between his fingertips as he wrung his hands together. He tried to mold it into something that would make Derek tell the truth, and once he thought he had it, he tentatively reached over and brushed against his leather jacket. 

Immediately, Derek flinched like he’d been burnt, jerking the wheel. Cursing lowly, he slammed on the brakes, skidding a little before coming to a full stop. “What the hell,” He exclaimed, turning to face Stiles, who was ducking his head guiltily. “Seriously, calm down. You weren’t even the one who was shocked.”

 

“Sorry about that. I was trying to make you tell me if you were taking me to the police station.” Stiles confessed, one hand gripping the strap of his backpack in case he needed to take a run for it. 

Derek rolled his eyes, and started driving again. “I told you I was going to take you to someone who might help. Shocking me is just going to make me wreck, and If you make me put so much as a scratch on my car, I’m not going to help you. I will deposit you on the side of the road and go find a mechanic.” Huffing, Stiles slouched in his seat, resolutely looking out the window. They drove for a few more hours, thankfully with Beacon Hills still in their rearview mirror. The sun slowly set while Stiles fiddled with his Spark in his hands to try and keep himself from getting too jittery from being cooped up in a car for so long.

Derek pulled into the parking lot, turning off the car and undoing his seatbelt. Stiles sat updumbfounded beside him. “Uh, Derek, you know this is a vet’s office, right? What, do you need some flea medicine or something?” He asked, unable to hold the quip on the end of his tongue. Derek glared at him, but shut the door behind him and striding up towards the building. Stiles scrambled to follow after him. “It’s like, nine at night. There’s no way that anyone is still going to be here.” It didn’t even look like there were any lights on, and there wasn’t a car in sight.

Derek didn’t even bother to knock, just loomed in front of the doorway. By the time Stiles made it next to him, the door was opening. Derek smugly raised an eyebrow at Stiles, who just humphed in response. “Deaton. Can we come in?” Derek asked, “We should probably not have this conversation out in the open.” Deaton stepped back from the doorway emotionlessly, walking further into the darkened office. Derek all but pushed Stiles inside, closing the door firmly behind them.

Stiles followed the retreating back of the vet, already starting to plead his case. “Okay, so Derek told me you could train me. I’m kind of in a hurry though, because Gerard more than likely stole my best friend and I really need to get him back before they do something horrible to him.” At the end of Stiels rant, Deaton gave Derek a put upon glance. 

Deaton looked over both of them, sighing heavily. “You want me to train him? Honestly, I don’t have the time to fully commit taking on a student, And just because I can do magic doesn’t mean we do the same magic.” He gave an impassive look at Derek before turning his stare to Stiles. “Can you do healing magic?”

Stiles just sort of stared at him blankly. “Well . . . I’ve tried to heal, like paper cuts and stuff before. It’s . . . never really worked.” Deaton looked unimpressed, and Stiles felt the need to explain himself. “But I fixed Derek’s cereal bowl, and I dried out my clothes today?”

“He also managed to sneak up on me. Right up until he busted through my front door and he broke my cereal bowl.” He paused for a moment, thinking before he continued. “He also struggled with drying his clothes. It didn’t smell right at first.” Deaton’s eyebrow rose at that.

Stiles glared at Derek, “Okay, the cereal bowl attack was antagonized, don’t make yourself sound like too much of a victim. And it’s not like I’ve ever had to magically dry something before.” 

Deaton looked back and forth between the two for a long while, before sighing. “Well, come here Stiles. We’ll try and see if you can do healing, and if not I don’t see what I can teach you.” Stiles practically skipped over to him, following him into a back room of the vet office, Derek following dutifully behind them. Deaton gently picked up a small kitten that meowed pitifully. “This is one of the strays that someone left here last night. I’m almost positive that he has a broken leg. Let’s see if you can fix it.”

Stiles just stared at Deaton. “That’s all you’re going to give me? No other direction?” He shot a look back at Derek. “What kind of teacher did you bring me to?” Derek just raised an eyebrow at him, and Stiles turned back to the little kitten? “Here goes.” He muttered as he pulled his magic, gathering it into his palm and hesitantly reaching down to touch the kitten. When nothing happened after a moment, he pulled away.

“Well that wasn’t too traumatic of a first try.” Deaton gestured for Stiles to move and he placed his own hands on the kitten, petting it’s tiny hand. After a moment, the kitten got up and hesitantly took a few steps before bounding off of the table. Deaton turned to Derek, “What was different about Stiles magic?”

“It smells too . . . red.” Derek muttered unhappily, obviously not wanting to be the center of attention right now. Stiles just gaped at him. “Yours smelled . . . like spring. And green.” Deaton just hummed thoughtfully. 

“What does that even mean. Too red?” Stiles asked, looking down at his palm. He thought about the way he’d made his magic feel warm before, and he started imagining what spring felt like. He kept manipulating it little by little.

“That’s it.” Derek said, startling Stiles out of his thoughts and he felt his magic dispel into the air. “That was what Deaton’s smelled like.” Derek darted a glance at the vet who was watching them silently. When he saw that both of them were staring at him, he hunched his shoulders as if he could fit completely into his jacket. 

Deaton turned back to the kitten, giving it a reassuring scratch behind its ear before looking expectantly at Stiles. Stiles coughed, and tried to recreate that same feeling. He closed his eyes, not able to stand the kitten’s big eyes staring up at him. He tried to just concentrate on the broken leg and feeding his magic into it. He opened his eyes what felt like a few minutes later, swaying on his feet a little bit. “Did that work? I feel so tired.” 

Deaton guided him to a chair, pushing a glass of water into his hands. “It took you about a half an hour, but you fixed her broken leg.” Deaton frowned when Stiles spit water out of his cup. 

“Half an hour?” He exclaimed, standing up and immediately falling back into the chair. Gripping his head, he moaned out, “What the hell is wrong with me? I have to do that whole movie montage thing and save Scott.” Deaton threw a confused glance at Derek, who just shrugged. “Y’know, the whole year and a day thing that they do in like a week so they can go save the princess or whatever?” Deaton coughed awkwardly, turning towards the kitten to carry it back towards the kennels. “Uh, so guys, I’m not liking all of this silence.”

“Stiles,” Deaton started, turning to lean against a counter with a bland look. “There is merit to the whole ‘year and a day thing.’ You can’t master a magic that you barely understand in enough time to successfully rescue your friend. Especially without finding a Spark like you.” 

Stiles slammed his hands down on the counter, standing up. “That’s not good enough! Why the hell give me this spark if it’s not going to be worth a damn when I actually need it!” He wobbled on his feet. “If you’re not going to teach me, then I’ll just figure it out on my own. Or find a different spark. Or just abuse Derek’s super sniffer until I get a handle of it.” He made his way outside, making sure the door slammed behind him. 

Deaton sighed, shaking his head. “I think you two would do fine to train together until you find someone better to teach him.” He eyed the werewolf as he pretended to clean up the counters. “Not to mention it would do you some good to get out of the house.” He meticulously put the rag away, the action almost as good as a dismissal as the vet left the room.

Derek pressed a hand over his eyes briefly before following an irritated Stiles back out to his car. “Some help he was. Are you sure he’s anything other than a vet? I think he can’t really do magic, he just says he can and helps animals because they can’t tell everyone he’s lying.” Stiles threw himself back into the passenger seat of the car, huffing loudly. Derek started the car up again and picking a random destination 

“Listen, just because he didn’t offer to train you doesn’t mean that he isn’t helping in his own way.” Stiles rolled his eyes, slumping into the seat even further. “If you don’t sit up, you’ll get your neck broken if we get into a wreck.”

“Well, I’m not shocking you any more so you shouldn’t be wrecking anymore, right?” Stiles asked petulantly. Abruptly, Derek pulled over on the side of the road, twisting in his seat to just stare at the other man. Stiles resolutely stared out the window with his arms crossed. When the silence stretched on, he darted a glance over at Derek to see his unimpressed face still staring at him. Letting out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, he turned back towards him. “Sorry, I’m just frustrated, and I probably shouldn’t be taking it out on you or the vet.” 

Apparently satisfied, Derek pulled back onto the road. “Well, let’s just head as far east as we can tonight, and we’ll stop at a hotel somewhere for the night. Sound like a plan?” Stiles just nodded his head, leaning his head on the window to watch the scenery fly by. At least he was on his way to finding Scott.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles woke groggily, his body aching from the poor quality of the motel bed. The shower was already running, and he briefly wondered how long Derek had been awake. They had driven late into the night before finding someplace to sleep. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he leaned over and pulled his laptop out of his bag. He pulled up Argent Corp’s website, scouring over the bio they had of the founder of the company.

He was still hunched over the laptop when the bathroom door opened, revealing Derek scrubbing a towel through his hair. Stiles grunted a morning at him, but otherwise kept scrutinizing the webpage before him. He was unable to glean any more information that he hadn’t already figured out the first 30 times he had read it in the past week, so he minimized the tab and googled Gerard. He skimmed through the information, absently chewing on his shirt sleeve. “Did you know Gerard has four houses on the East Coast?”

Derek pulled on his shirt before coming to look over Stiles’ shoulder. “They probably all have extensive security systems.”

Stiles hummed in agreement. “Yeah. I doubt he keeps his hostages at his house, anyways. Seems like it would be too easy to get caught.” He tried searching Argent Corp facilities next. Pages upon pages of results sat in front of him. “Wow, I don’t think I realized exactly how big the company was. They have over . . . two thousand facilities. God, which one is he hiding Scott in?”

Sighing, Derek came over and pushed the lid of the laptop down to get Stiles full attention. “Look, don’t overwhelm yourself with information. Which one is the closest to us?” Stiles pushed the lid back up and scanned the list before rattling off an address. Nodding, Derek went back to his bag and folding his dirty clothes and putting them in a plastic bag he had pulled out.

“How do you even have a bag of clothes anyways?” Stiles leaned back and watched Derek gather his things. “I mean, you didn’t grab one before we left. You thought you were just dropping me off at the vet’s and going back home.”

“Deaton,” Derek corrected, slowing his movements. “I have a go bag in my trunk.” He turned his back to Stiles, zipping up his bags and depositing them by the door.

“Is that like, a Spark thing?” Stiles supposed it made sense. You never knew when the world was going to be in danger. Or when someone would demand a Spark’s help. “Hey, do you often have people busting through your door demanding help?”

Derek snorted, shaking his head. “No, that’s kind of the reason that I live out in the woods by myself. It’s not like most people would walk through the woods to find me.” Stiles ignored the jab at him and wandered into the bathroom to brush his teeth. “Most people are pretty polite about the whole thing, too. At least, the ones who know about it anyways. While most of us are registered, not too many people take the time to go and search through it.” Derek paused for a moment. “How did you find me?”

Stiles raised an eyebrow at him, mouth full of toothpaste. Derek just continued waiting for an answer, leaning against the door. After scrubbing his teeth a few more times, he spit into the sink. “My mom had a - box of stuff. Magical stuff.” He was quietly proud of himself for not stumbling over his words. “She had an article about your, uh, family. I remembered her talking about how close you were. She was worried, I think.” Worried that her house might be the next one to be burnt down, because her son carried magic in his veins, too. Stiles awkwardly stuck the toothbrush back in his mouth, leaning over the sink.

Derek watched him quietly for a moment, his mouth in a thin line. He seemed to shake himself out of it after a moment, however. “I’m going to go down and get some breakfast.” Stiles made a noncommittal hum around his toothbrush, watching Derek walk away from the bathroom door with a tight feeling in his chest. He was sure Derek didn’t like talking about his family, not that he could blame him. He couldn’t even talk about his mom and that was nothing compared to what had happened to the Hale family.

Stiles threw off his clothes and jumped in the shower, letting the hot water wipe away the thoughts. He thought he heard the door open and shut, and he quickly finished up his shower. Coming out with a towel over his head, he saw the plates Derek had brought back with him. “Are we feeding an army?” Stiles half wondered how he had managed to take all of that food with him without anyone saying anything to him.

“I have a high metabolism,” Derek hunched his shoulders defensively. “And I don’t know what you like to eat.” He watched Stiles sit across from him, grabbing the nearest plate towards him and start shoveling food into his mouth. They ate in relative quietness, other than the sound of the plasticware on the paper plates. Stiles watched in awe as Derek finished most of the food. They cleared the table and gathered their things so that they could get on the road.

Stiles plugged the address of the facility into his phone and settled in for the ride. He tried to find out as much as he could about the place they were going to, but they seemed to keep their files as secretive as they could. “So, what are we going to do here, anyways?” Stiles turned to face the older man. ‘“It’s not like we can just go up to the front counter and ask them where they keep their hostages.”

“We’ll stay in town for a couple of days. Try to see if we can’t catch wind of anyone disappearing there, too. It’s likely that if they took Scott for something other than just dating his granddaughter, that they will have taken more.” Once they got into town, they found a decent place to stay for the next couple of days.

“I need to have something to eat. Or I’m liable to try to eat your arm, or something.” Stiles grumbled as they carried their bags into the room to settle in. Derek rumbled an agreement, dropping his bags into a corner of the room before turning and walking back towards the door. Stiles hurriedly dropped his bags as well, all but stumbling after him. “Man, you really do need a lot of food, don’t you?” Derek gave him a sidelong glance but didn’t say anything. “Because the only way I can describe your mood right now is hangry.”

Derek rolled his eyes, turning into the first drive thru they came across. “Yeah, can I get two manager’s specials, please?” They ate in a park of some sort, surrounded by office buildings and skyscrapers. They settled underneath an arch in the middle of the field, spreading out the food between them.

It was quiet for a long moment, before Stiles spoke up. “So, I think the easiest way to figure if anyone is missing here is a newspaper? I’d say the police station, but I’m sure my dad has already put something out that I’m missing.” He glanced at Derek’s blank expression before continuing. “Honestly, he’s probably pretty pissed at me for disappearing on him, but what good is my Spark if I can’t even use it to save my best friend?” Derek didn’t say anything, staring down at the food intensely. Stiles let silence fall for another few seconds before rambling on again. “Although, if they’ve been missing for a while, it might not be in today’s papers.”

“The library,” Derek interrupted Stiles thought process. “They usually have back issues of papers, and if nothing else we can use the internet so they can’t track us through our IP address or anything.” He shrugged at Stiles incredulous look. “Or whatever they use to track people when they’re using the internet. I don’t know how all of that works.”

Stiles grinned at him, “Yeah, we’ll figure something out. We probably should have just searched through the papers before just taking off someplace anyways. I mean, we could just look at towns that have Argent facilities and look at the newspapers from there. It would be a lot less time consuming than driving to all of them. They finished their meal and headed towards the closest library. “We’ve gotta split up,” Stiles hissed at Derek while they were walking through the doors. “We’re going to be a lot more memorable if we’re together.”

Derek shrugged, and wandered off to the other side of the library to settle at a computer in the corner. Stiles wandered around the stacks for a little while, as if he were looking for something specific. He made sure to walk past the computer row Derek was on to get the number before going upstairs and settling at a computer. He started looking up the news articles going back a month, scouring them for any disappearances. He couldn’t find anything, and he was about to start looking at a different town, when something caught his eye. It was in the back of one of the issues, just a couple of paragraphs. ‘Local Spark Moves.’ He pulled up a messaging app.

COMP 4: Hey, I think I found something.  
COMP 19: ...Stiles?  
COMP 4: Yeah? Who else would be messaging you?  
COMP 19: Whatever. Isn’t this going to leave a trace?  
COMP 4: Nah, I’m not that stupid. I’ll wipe it before we leave.  
COMP 4: So, the local Spark ‘moved’ all of a sudden. And by move, I mean they left all of their stuff and disappeared off the face of the earth. No forwarding address, didn’t tell any of their friends, never registered in another town.  
COMP 19: Do you have a name?  
COMP 4: Victor Samora. He lived a few miles away from here. We should check out his house.  
COMP 19: Wouldn’t it have sold or something?  
COMP 4: They haven’t done anything with it because he still technically owns it. He’s not listed as dead or anything, so it hasn’t been auctioned off. They think he might come   back.  
COMP 19: What if he is? What if he just went on vacation to get away from everyone for a while? I wouldn’t blame him. If he has a news article written about him, he would have   been pretty widely known. I’m sure he was getting all kinds of attention for being what he was.  
COMP 4: It’s like 300 words in the back of a newspaper. Besides, he fixes violins for a living. That doesn’t sound like someone who would just up and leave on a whim.  
COMP 19: Fine. Let’s go break into some guy’s house that might be on vacation, then.  
COMP 4: Needs must, man. Meet you at the car.

__

They parked in an ice cream parlor, going inside and getting a couple of cones so it wouldn’t look as suspicious. “This peppermint ice cream is literally the best thing I have ever tasted.” Stiles groaned, bumping into Derek as they walked down the street.

Derek just took a small bite of his cone, rolling his eyes at Stiles. “There isn’t anyone around anymore. You don’t have to ham it up anymore.”

“Hamming it up? I wouldn’t lie about ice cream. This is going to be my favourite ice cream flavor from now on. Just because you have boring tastes” He pointedly eyed the vanilla cone in Derek’s hand. Derek shrugged unashamed. The sun was starting to set and the temperature was slowly dropping with it. Stiles could feel the heat from Derek’s shoulder from where it brushed his as they tried to stay on the sidewalk. They slowed to a stop as they neared the house. Stiles swallowed the last of his ice cream and wiped his fingers off on his pants. “I think I can get the door open with my spark. C’mon.”

Derek followed after him obediently, shielding him from the road and hopefully any prying neighbors as Stiles bent as if he were inserting a key into the lock. Gathering up the familiar energy in his hand, he squeezed his eye shut and twisted the door knob. The door opened without a complaint, and he grinned triumphantly. “That was fast.” Derek mutter in disbelief, closing the door softly behind him.

“I used to practice it all the time when I was younger. I wanted to be a detective like my dad, so I would try and sneak and look at his files. He eventually caught on and started locking them in his office. My mom thought it was funny to buy me a set of lockpicks for Christmas one year, and I learned how to pick a lock. After I could do that, I started trying to do it with my spark. Mom wanted me to teach her but . . . “ Stiles trailed off, instead looking around the living room. “I’ll take the upstairs.” He mumbled and set off upstairs to look for clues. He methodically looked through the rooms, careful to not touch anything. He grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom, using it to move things around.

He found Victor’s bedroom and he shook his head. “There’s no way this guy just left.” Opening up his closet, he saw it was full of clothes. “He didn’t even take any clothes with him when he left.” Closing the closet doors, he started going through the nightstand. He found a couple of novels, a glasses case, nothing out of the ordinary. But in the bottom drawer was a bunch of envelopes. He pulled one out, and grinned. “Jackpot.”

He gathered up all of the envelopes and brought them downstairs, tromping through the house to find Derek. “Find anything?” The older Spark asked from where he was rifling through cabinet doors in the kitchen. Stiles handed him the envelopes. Derek looked through them, “Argent Corp?” He ripped open one of the letters and scanned it.

Stiles snagged a different one from him and opened it up as well. “Have you ever heard anything about Argent Corp having a ‘Spark Health Program?’” Derek shook his head, opening up another envelope. “Looks like they were getting more aggressive with their letters. ‘It’s in your best interest. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to a Spark in our community?’ Sounds pretty ominous to me.” He shuffled through a few more. “Look, the last one is dated just a few days before that news article.”

Derek gathered up the pile and stuffed them into his pocket. “I think this is all we’re going to find. Let’s get out of here before one of the neighbors tries to come over or calls the cops.” They left out the backdoor using the cover that night gave them to sneak back to the car.

Stiles turned to him once they were in the car. “Hey, can we stop at walmart before we go back to the hotel?” Derek shrugged, messing with the gps before pulling out of the parking lot. Stiles dragged him around the store, getting momentarily lost before finally finding the aisle he wanted. He picked up a few notebooks, a pack of highlighters, and a bundle of post its before he was satisfied. Derek just followed Stiles like a very tall shadow, only moving when he insisted on paying for the purchases.

“You shouldn’t be using your card.” Derek said pointedly, looking down at the debit card Stiles had unthinkingly pulled out. Derek handed over some cash and they made their way back to the hotel. Stiles immediately spread his things out on one of the bed, flipping one open and scribbling in it. “What’s all that stuff for, anyways?”

Stiles glanced up at him for a moment, “keeping track of everything. So I can make timelines and stuff like that. It’s easier to figure things out.” Derek shook his head, leaving him to his notebooks to sort through his bags.  
He kept pulling out random pieces of clothing until he had a pile next to him. Derek stopped by Stiles bed. “Do you have any dirty laundry?” Stiles eyed the pile of laundry in Derek’s arms before shrugging, and digging out a plastic bag with some clothes in it and handing it to Derek.

“Uh, thanks? I mean you don’t have to?” Derek shrugged, leaving without replying. Gnawing on his lip, Stiles stared after him for a little while before turning back to his papers. He lost track of time working on what he knew so far, and before he knew it, Derek was back, dropping a pile of neatly folded clothes in front of Stiles. “So, Victor disappeared like, a month and a half before Scott did. And I guess he was pulling away from people for a couple of weeks before, too.”

Derek frowned, looking down at all of the post it’s that littered the bed, “How do you even know that?” Stiles shoved one of the envelopes at him, and Derek read the scribbled pencil on the back of it. “You hacked his facebooK?”

“It’s not really hacking if I found his password and email. Plus, he had the same password for his email, too. Gotta love older people who have troubles with technology. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly his Spark was. But I just couldn’t go through any of his emails. There’s only so much I can read about violin strings, man.” Flopping back on the bed, Stiles stared up at the ceiling blankly. “We don’t even know if this whole Spark thing is related to Scott.”

“So, you don’t want to figure out what happened to Victor?” Derek accused, quietly thinking to himself that it didn’t seem like Stiles’ character to not care about at least the mystery of it.

“I didn’t say that,” Stiles snapped, running a rough hand through his hair. “But Scott is my main priority. We don’t even know . . . maybe he just decided to join the program and he’s just doing some testing at one of the facilities or something.” Derek raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him and Stiles let out a huge sigh. “Yeah, I know how improbable that is.”

Shaking his head, Derek sat on the bed beside Stiles. “Ok, enough about Argent Corp tonight. Let’s work on your spark.” Stiles just laid on the bed, so Derek pulled him into a sitting position. “Come on, this is just as important to finding Scott as researching is.” That seemed to pull Stiles out of his funk, and he sat crossed legged across from Derek. “Alright. Um . . .”

“What are we working on, big guy?” Stiles grinned, leaning forward into Derek’s space. Narrowing his eyes, Derek pointedly brought up his left hand and let it transform into claws. Stiles watched as he drew a line along his opposite palm. “What the hell are you doing?” Derek just rolled his eyes and placed his now bleeding palm in his hands. “Dramatic.” Stiles muttered, but obligingly closed his eyes and reached for his spark. Breathing in and out slowly, he tried to pull up the memory of what it felt like to heal that kitten back in Deaton’s office. Funneling his magic, he pressed it into Derek’s palm and hoped for the best.

“Good.” Derek mumbled after what could have been a minute or twenty. Stiles opened his eyes and say nothing more than a little bit of drying blood resting on Derek’s palm. Giving him a tired smile, he lifted a hand for a high five.

“Yeah, I can heal!” He flinched back when Derek lifted up his bloody palm to high five him with. “Ew, no not that-!” He tried to pull away but Derek was quicker and Stiles looked down at his palm. “Gross. Seriously gross. I really, really don’t need your blood all over me,” He called out as he went to the bathroom.

Derek was pulling down the covers of his bed and climbing in when Stiles came back out. “You should get some sleep. I’d like to go to the next place tomorrow. I don’t think there’s anything left for us here.” Stiles gave a vague noise of agreement and started carefully packing up all of his notes before collapsing into his own bed and falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this going too slow? We should be getting to some more action in another chapter (or two, maybe?) But everything about this is definitely a slow burn. Sorry this is a little shorter than the first chapter. Hope you're along for the ride. (: Let me know what you think about everything!


	3. Chapter 3

“Seriously, are we just staying at the same motel every time?” Stiles muttered as he threw all of his things in corner before flopping onto the shitty mattress with an ugly comforter on it. “Yupp, same crinkly, horrible feeling.” Derek rolled his eyes, placing his bags neatly on the floor before sitting on the corner of the bed. “So, what’s the game plan here?” 

“Well, we haven’t found anything in the newspapers yet, right?” Stiles shook his head at Derek, his fingertips worrying at the sleeves of his shirt. “Okay. Well, let’s find someplace popular in town and listen and see if we can’t hear anything worthwhile?” The older Spark suggested. Stiles just shrugged and followed him back out to the car. They drove around town for a while, before they decided to just pull into the local park. They found a bench in the middle of the chaos that was the green, settling down with the coffee they had picked up on the way. 

“I’m not going to be much help here,” Stiles pointed out, pointing dramatically at his ears. “I may as well be deaf compared to you.” 

Derek smiled, all teeth and Stiles immediately frowned, knowing he wasn’t going to like what was coming next. “Then this is a perfect opportunity to work on your spark, then, isn’t it?” Stiles groaned, but tried to settle comfortably. 

“I don’t know, it’s going to be really hard for me to concentrate with everything going on.” Stiles warned, accepting the earbuds Derek pulled out of his pocket with a sigh. He popped them into his ears and tucked the jack into his pants pocket. He eyed Derek’s worn paperback, “Seriously, what kind of go bag do you even have?” Derek gave him a pointed look, and Stiles raised his hands and closed his eyes to try and concentrate. 

He doesn’t even start with his magic, instead trying to get a handle on all of the noises around him already in his range. It took him a long minute to be able to focus different conversations out of the chaos, rather than just bits and pieces all squished together. Once he had his concentration under control, he rubbed his hands together to gather his Spark, and tried to amplify everything around him. At first, all he got was a really uncomfortable ringing in his ears, making him jump. He felt Derek’s shoulder brush closer, but Stiles only shook his head. Gritting his teeth, he tried again. This time he gets a much louder jumbled mess of conversations, only with doubled the voices now. He pulled his Spark in, and the sound reduced to a dull roar, and he tried to just listen for keywords in the mess.

Almost everything he tuned into is something completely useless. He’s about to ask Derek if they should just go when he heard Derek’s name come out of someone else’s mouth. He opened his eyes and his gaze sharpened in the direction that it came from. He felt Derek sit up a little straighter and he remembered they were supposed to be subtle. He averted his gaze off to the side, but kept glancing back at the woman who was still talking about Derek to her friend out of the corner of his eye. 

“I’m pretty sure I went to high school with that guy. God, he grew up just as gorgeous as I thought he would.” She dreamily tells her friend, who’s giggling like they’re still school girls. “Hey, so I’m going to go say hi. I’ll meet you back at the office.” 

Stiles immediately panicked, his body stiffening. Derek heaved a sigh, “Relax, or she’ll definitely know something is up.” He laid a hand on Stiles’ knee for a split second before the girl came up closer to them. Stiles forced his eyes closed again, leaning back against the bench and feigning relaxed. 

“Derek?” 

He felt Derek look up from his book as if he was surprised, and he silently commended his acting skills. “Paige. What a surprise!” Paige laughed softly, and Derek nudged Stiles to get his attention. Stiles pulled an earbud out and smiled at the girl in front of them. “Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch date.”

“Oh, no. It’s not like that,” Stiles protested, face flushing. Derek rolled his eyes, but the tips of his ears were pink as well. “I’m just a friend. Stiles,” He said, before he could think better of it. “I’m dragging Derek onto a road trip with me before I have to start my thesis at school.”

“Paige and I went to high school together.” Derek said, scooting closer to Stiles to give Paige room to sit down on the bench as well. Paige seemed to be giving Derek a meaningful look and Derek was pointedly ignoring it. He coughed awkwardly before turning to Paige, “So, how have you been since I’ve seen you last?” 

She shrugged, “I finally finished my degree, and I’m definitely glad that I’m not the one that has to start their thesis. That was definitely a rough year. Good thing you get to relax on this road trip beforehand,” She gave Stiles a wink. He gave her a weak smile back as she continued on. “I’ve been working with kids at a new office. I really like it so far.” She paused for a moment before leaning forward conspiratorially. “So, are you a Spark, too?”

Stiles laughed lightly, but his heart was pounding. “Yeah, I am.” She nodded approvingly, leaning back against the bench. “So, I’m guessing you’ve known about Derek for a while, huh?” Her smile turned wicked, and Derek groaned, hiding his head in his hands.

“I may have had an issue with control for a little while. Because of puberty.” Derek bit out, his ears flushing again. Paige laughed harder, and he frowned. “Okay, it wasn’t that bad!”

“Derek, you were practically a little rage monster freshman year.” Derek flinched almost imperceptibly at the word monster, and Stiles filed the action away for later. “God, you were so mysterious about it though. Had all of the girls chasing after him for the rest of high school.” She tugged absently on the scarf wound around her neck, “So, did you guys stop here because of the Spark program?”

Stiles had to force himself not to perk up at that, “Spark program? Like, when they get registered?” 

Paige shook her head, “No, it’s something Argent Corp has been doing recently. A lot of the kids that have been coming through therapy at the office have been enrolling in it. I guess they’re having a hard time with adult volunteers.” Stiles felt his stomach roll at the thought of what they were making those kids go through. “It’s some sort of health and wellness thing, I think. Some basic training for their type of Sparks.” Her phone suddenly went off, and she jumped. “I’ve got to get back to the office, sorry. It was so nice to see you, Derek. If you guys come back through this way, you should say hi.” She handed Derek a business card that she pulled out of her purse before waving and rushing off towards the parking lot.

“So . . .” Stiles started after a few quiet moments. Derek just grunted at him and stood up, shoving the card into his back pocket. Stiles took the hint and shut his mouth, sighing softly and following him back to the car. The ride back to the hotel was quiet, not even the radio on. Derek didn’t get out of the car once they parked, his hands still tight on the steering wheel. “Derek, come on. You’ve got to learn to talk to me about what’s going on. We’re not going to get anywhere if we keep freaking out and not talking to each other.”

Derek let out a huge breath. “Sorry, Paige just brought up a lot of uncomfortable memories.” He took a few more even breaths before speaking again. “Her scarf covers up some scars that are my fault. We snuck out one night onto my family’s preserve. A mountain lion attacked us, and she almost died. I really didn’t have the best control back then.” Stiles laid a hand on Derek’s shoulder and squeezed softly. “It’s just . . . I haven’t really been out in the world for a while. It’s all been a little much.” Derek confessed. 

“I know what you mean. This whole thing is a little much. Sorry for dragging you into this.” Stiles frowned, pulling his arm back. “You know you don’t really have to keep going with me.” Derek shook his head and got out of the car, leaving Stiles to scramble out after him. “I’m being serious.” Derek just ushered him inside the hotel room. “Fine, fine. Be all broody and silent and keep on this probably slightly illegal path with me.” He muttered, but there was a smile on his lips. Stiles plopped onto the couch, pulling out his laptop again. “I’ll see if I can’t find any records of which kids have gone through this program lately.” He didn’t hear if Derek replied, already too focused on the contents of the page in front of him.

He vaguely heard the door opening and closing a few times while he was researching, but he didn’t really pay it any mind. Everything he was finding was just making him more and more frustrated. He jumped when Derek dropped a greasy bag into his lap, nearly dropping his computer off the edge of the couch arm. He huffed a relieved sigh and set his laptop someplace safer, and dug into the bag. “So, they’re playing by the books with the kids.” He told Derek through a mouthful of fries. “They aren’t telling the parents exactly what tests they’re doing on the kids, but none of them have gone missing yet, either. From what I’ve seen they really are just monitoring their health, but they’re looking at everything. Like, these kids can barely sneeze without their doctors knowing about it.”

Derek frowned down at his own food. “This isn’t really helpful either, then. It’s not like we can ask the kids questions about it. And if we approach the parents they’re going to wonder why we want to talk to their kids.”

“Y’know, maybe we can still work with this.” Stiles pulled his laptop back over, and started searching through the main site again. “They’ve got some sketchy looking enhancement and wellness programs right now too.” He grinned a few seconds later. “And there’s a very vocal young lady that was shunted from the program who has some choice words to say about the competency of the scientists on her blog. A MissLydia1 who lives six hours away.” Stiles pulled his food closer again. “We should go visit her. I’ll send her a PM to arrange something. I’m going to tell her that we’ve been approached about the program but we’re a little wary about it.”

“And what, we’re just a couple of friends that are just traveling around to talk to people in this program?” Derek asked skeptically. “She’s just going to buy that?” 

“Most of her blog is about clothes, I’m pretty sure the reason she got cut from the program is because she couldn’t keep her mind off her credit card for more than an hour.” Stiles quipped, chewing on the straw to his soda. “I think she’ll buy just about whatever we feed her.” His laptop pinged, and he grinned. “She’s agreed to meet us on Thursday for lunch. Our treat, apparently.” 

_

Two minutes into the conversation, Stiles knew he was wrong. They’d just barely gotten past the introductions and he already knew the very intimidating woman sitting across from them was in no way going to believe the bull they’d been planning on telling her. “So, you two are interested in Argent Corps enhancement program?” She asked as she eyed Derek’s considerably muscled arms. 

Stiles coughed to hide a laugh at Derek’s deer in a headlights look. Lydia’s gaze narrowed in on him instead, and he grinned back at her. “Alright, so I might have lied a little in my message. He ignored Derek’s not so subtle kick underneath the table. He was going to have to talk to him about trust again later. “We’ve been approached by their Spark Wellness program, but if they can’t even manage their other medical programs, then they definitely can’t do anything for a Spark.”

“I see.” Lydia looked him up and down for a moment, before sitting back in her seat. “Their program is atrocious. They only have eyes for certain applicants, and the others are just to keep up appearances.” She paused as the waiter came to the table. They ordered and waited for him to leave before continuing their conversation. “The only reason I applied was to go with my boyfriend. He was intent on the enhancement part to try to have an edge at sports.” She rolled her eyes, though the action seemed fond. “He excelled at all of their tests, no matter how strange. I, on the other hand, failed everything past their initial wellness tests. Immune, is what the doctors kept throwing around when they thought I wasn’t listening.” 

“Immune?” Stiles interrupted, bewildered. What kind of tests were they running that someone could come up immune? 

“They claimed that they were testing my resilience to various diseases and viruses, and that since my immune system did so well, that I couldn’t be enhanced at all. But they refused to tell me exactly which diseases they supposedly exposed me to. Which is quite illegal, I assure you” She looked back and forth between them when the food came. They switched back to idle small talk while they ate. Once they were finished and the bill was paid, she stood, smoothing out her dress. “Walk me to my car.” 

Derek shared a look with Stiles, before following the woman outside. Lydia had parked in the back of the parking lot, and she leaned up against her immaculate driver side door to look between the two of them. “Well, it was very nice to meet you.” Derek started, “Thank you for taking the time to speak with us.” 

Lydia scoffed. “Let’s not pretend that you don’t have an agenda. There’s no way the two of you are actually interested in the Spark program. It’s very obvious they’re looking for something with their programs. And not to mention it’s awfully weird that an arms company has a medical program at all.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper. “If you find anything out, I expect a call. Jackson is still in the program, and I’d prefer if I knew what they’re looking for before they find it in him.” She handed Derek the slip with her number on it before smiling at them and driving off.

“Well.” Stiles grinned, “that was definitely not what I was expecting.” Derek was still looking stunned beside him, and Stiles clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, that food was terrible. We should go get some taco bell.” He tried to snag the keys from Derek, but the older man came to his senses and grabbed his wrist before he could pull the keys out of the jacket pocket. 

“Not a chance,” Derek said, pushing Stiles towards the car. They ate in the car, Stiles with a burrito in one hand and his phone in the other. “There’s a couple other mentions about these health programs on some lesser known blogs. We should try to get a hold of some of these people.” He perked up when he looked at some of the newer posts of one of the blogs. “Hey, we’ve got one that’s disappeared.” He scrolled through the frantic mom’s post on her daughter’s blog. “Her mother obviously doesn’t know anything about it, but Tremblingyetstrong talks a lot about the boy at the ice rink. He might know something if they’re dating.” 

Derek just nodded, “As long as they actually know something. I feel like everything we find out just raises more questions. How far away are they?” Derek asked, carefully folding up his burger wrapper. 

Stiles clicked around for a moment, then winced. “Uh, they’re in Iowa? But there’s a few towns in between that we can stop at that have pretty decently sized facilities.” Stiles watched Derek move the little table and chairs off to the opposite corner of the room, opening up some space. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“I asked Deaton what else we should be working on with your Spark. He suggested some defensive stuff? Something about a protective barrier.” He mumbled as he was rummaging through the drawers. He made Stiles come and sit on the floor across from him, and he laid out what he’d found. 

“So . . . we’re going to make notes about defensive stuff?” Stiles asked, eyeing the notepads and pens in front of him. Derek ignored him, crumpling up a piece of paper and throwing it at him. “What the hell,” Stiles gasped as it bounced off his chin.

“Use your magic to block it.” Derek unhelpfully replied as he started balling up another piece of paper. 

“Seriously, that’s all the guidance I get?” Stiles tried to bat at the next paper ball but missed it, frowning when it hit him in the chest. “At least give me a minute to even get something together!” Derek paused at that before continuing to make paper balls. Stiles grumbled under his breath nonsensically, but started pulling his spark together, trying to make it into a physical shield in front of him. His mind kept popping back to Captain America’s shield unhelpfully. 

Derek must have figured he was actually concentrating now, because he started throwing paper balls at him again. Stiles flinched every time a ball hit him, and he finally threw up his hands. “Okay, I need a little more guidance than this. Or at least give me a minute to try and pull something together.” Stiles closed his eyes and he tried to imagine a solid shield in front of him. Once he thought he got it, he gave a nod. Derek started throwing paper balls at him again. The first few hit, but then one of them bounced off of something. Derek hesitantly reached out and pressed into the invisible shield in between them.

“You . . . made a shield.” Derek was running his fingertips around the edges of the invisible barrier and coming around in a circle. 

“Whoops?” Stiles shrugged, a grin on his face. “I kept thinking about Captain America so that’s probably why.” 

Derek shook his head. “Why don’t you think about a wall instead?” Stiles shrugged and closed his eyes to concentrate again. He peeked an eye open and watched the paper balls bounce off the invisible wall in front of him. His grin dropped when he saw Derek pick up the bible from behind him with a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

“Derek, no!” Stiles protested, throwing his hands up.

“It’s got to be able to withstand more than paper, right?” Derek hefted the bible up and tossed it at Stiles. It passed through where the wall was with ease, thumping him in the chest before falling into his lap. Stiles glared at Derek, who held up his hands defensively. “I had to really test it. Better now than later, right?” Stiles grumbled as he got up, picking up a paper and throwing it at Derek’s head before flopping onto the bed. 

“No more, I’m tapped.” Stiles groaned, burrowing his face into the comforter. “Torture me with religious books tomorrow.” Derek chuckled softly before turning off the lights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this looks tiny, but it's like 6 pages, I swear. For some reason I forgot how to write in past tense in the beginning of this so if you catch the wrong tense let me know. Also, I have no clue what I'm doing. Fair warning. But hey, Lydia. And Paige.


	4. Chapter 4

“Okay, so we all know that your car is amazing, but I’m seriously getting tired of being stuck in it all the time.” Stiles huffed, trying to tuck his legs up underneath him in an attempt to get comfortable. “We need to stop for a couple of days somewhere. I need to stretch my legs.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go on this trip. You practically dragged me along with you.” Derek glanced over at him, a grin on his face. “But this next town is the one with the missing girl, right?” Stiles nodded, pulling out his phone to pull up the girl’s blog again. “Well, I’m sure it’ll take a couple of days to get all of the information that we need.” Derek pulled a hoodie out of the backseat when they stopped at a red light and threw it at Stiles. “There’s still a couple of hours before we get there. You should get some rest.” Stiles bunched up the hoodie and shoved it up underneath his head. He hummed along softly to the radio before falling asleep. 

Derek turned the radio down once he was asleep, rubbing a hand across his temples. He turned the gps up and fiddled with the settings, setting them to avoid highways. It would add a little bit of time to their journey but hopefully would keep them away from police. Assuming that Stiles father really did assume that Stiles came to Derek, his car was definitely easy to spot. He navigated off of the ramp and onto the back roads. At least this way he got to see more of the country, and it was almost like they were just going on a road trip. If he could ignore all of the Argent facilities he was going to. And all of the poeple they had talked to. 

That Lydia girl had certainly been a handful. He hadn’t expected her to see right through them. She seemed like she might have access to some resources that they wouldn’t, if they actually found something that would be helpful to her. He’d have to have Stiles check with her later, make sure that her boyfriend hadn’t disappeared yet. He wasn’t really sure what athletics and brainiacs had to do with all of this. 

The drive seemed to fly by, Stiles moving every now and again in his sleep and mumbling softly to himself. Derek was mostly lost in thought, still mulling over everything they had learned the past several days. He almost wished that he could go back to before all of this, when he was contentedly eating breakfast by himself. But then the faces of his family seemed to flash before him, and he tightened his jaw. No, he would much rather get some peace for his family over his own happiness. 

Stiles stirred on his own accord as they were approaching the city limits, blinking blearily and scrubbing at his face with Derek’s hoodie. Derek surprised himself with only just now realizing how entwined their scents had gotten in staying in such close quarters for so long. He pulled himself out of his thoughts when Stiles laid his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “What?” He asked almost stupidly. 

Stiles gave him a worried look, “Maybe we should go ahead and check into the hotel. You look like you could use a nap before we go talk to this guy.” Derek shook his head, both to Stiles suggestion and to his own thoughts. “Are you sure? You don’t look like you’re fully awake.”

“Just on auto pilot from driving.” Derek managed causing Stiles to shrug, although he still looked at Derek with suspicion out of the corner of his eye. Derek pulled into the skating rink parking lot and turned the car off. “Do you know what the boyfriend’s name is?” He asked as they got out of the car and walked up towards the rink.

Stiles shook his head, “Nah, she never names any names. Her name is attached to the blog that I definitely did not hack, though, and I found out her name’s Erica.” Holding the door open for Derek, he lowered his voice. “I’m hoping I can pass off as someone Erica was talking to on her blog. I’m mostly banking on him not having access to her private messages and her talking vaguely about the people she talked to on it.” Derek rubbed a weary hand over his face, catching Stiles’ giving him another look. “He might not even be here right now.” Derek didn’t say anything so Stiles just led them up to the front desk. “Hi, I’m looking for Erica’s boyfriend?” the girl at the front counter just stared at him for a moment, snapping her gum before pointing towards the back of the rink. “Thanks.”

Derek followed him back, staring at all of the teens running around and feeling very out of place. Stiles could almost pass as a teen still, but Derek’s scruff had always made him seem older than he really was. He wondered what people were thinking as they watched them walk past. “Relax,” Stiles murmured, placing a comforting hand on his forearm. “They’re probably just looking at your ass.” Derek gave him a sharp look of alarm, making Stiles burst into laughter. “Come on, I think I see him over by that zamboni.” Stiles dragged him over towards the man, stopping just shy of him and clearing his throat. The bigger man turned and eyed them, not bothering to say anything. “I’m sorry to bother you,” Stiles said, hunching his shoulders slightly. “I was supposed to meet with Erica for lunch the other day, but . . . she never showed up. I checked her blog page, and her mom posted something saying she was missing?”

Boyd narrowed his eyes at them, darting back and forth between Derek and Stiles suspiciously. Derek placed a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and gave a soft squeeze before extending his hand to Boyd. “I’m Derek, Stiles’ boyfriend. I didn’t think he should make the drive all the way out here by himself.” 

Stiles gave him a warm smile before turning back to Boyd. “She was going to go a little more in depth with the treatment that she’d been going through? I don’t have seizures like she does, but I do have some pretty bad ADHD, and I was hoping that they’d have a program for me, too.” At this Boyd seemed to relax a little, and he gestured for them to follow him. Stiles gave Derek a look, his smile crooking in the corner of his mouth as he reached out and took Derek’s hand in his. 

Boyd settled down at a table in the back of the food court, crossing his hands in front of them. “Erica disappeared nearly two weeks ago, now. The last place she had went was to her appointment at that damned facility. They swore that she left the building, and I guess they showed her parents the video of her actually leaving, but . . .” Boyd trailed off, staring down at his hands. 

 

“You think they took her.” Stiles murmured, gripping Derek’s hand tightly. “I’m so sorry. She didn’t mention that she was worried about her safety.” 

Boyd shook his head, “She wasn’t, up until the last couple of appointments she went to. She said they had started asking her weird questions that didn’t have anything to do with her epilepsy. And then she didn’t come home.” Boyd’s gaze hardened, and he reached across to grab Stiles’ and Derek’s joint hands. “I know I don’t have any place to ask this of you, but if you’re really going to go into the program, will you help me look for her?”

“I don’t think I’m going to enter the program, but . . .” Boyds face fell, and Stiles hurried on. “I’ll do my best in trying to find her.” He pulled his hand back to dig out a piece of paper. “I’ll just give you my phone number, if she comes home, you’ll give me a call?” Boyd nodded, solemnly taking the paper before standing. 

“I have to get back, my break is almost over.” He didn’t seem very hopeful. “I appreciate whatever help you can give me. And . . . I’m sorry Erica wasn’t here to meet with you.” He trundled back to the zamboni, and they stared at his back. 

“He looks so defeated.” Stiles murmured as he watched after Boyd walking away. “We’ve got to find everyone.” He turned towards Derek in determination. “I bet you that Jackson’s going to disappear next.” 

“Speaking of, you should probably check in with Lydia.” Stiles paled a little, shaking his head. “Why not? If you really think Jackson is going to disappear, shouldn’t you keep in contact with her?”

“She’ll call me if something happens. I don’t want to let her know too much, she already suspects something is up. I feel like if she knows too much more she’ll figure us out.” He shook his head with a small smile. “Not that I don’t think she won’t eventually figure us out, I’m just not trying to make her revelations happen any faster.” Stiles stood up, offering a hand to Derek. “C’mon, I’m sure there’s some other clues we can pick up from town if we look hard enough.” Derek let him pull him back out of the ice rink and back to the car, staring at their joined hands the whole way. 

They ended up at the library, where Stiles was pouring over a computer in the back of the library. It was one of few in the building, and they were old and sluggish. Stiles seemed to handle them with ease, though, and Derek was content to watch him speed read through pages upon pages of information while he kept half an eye on the people wandering around them. 

“So, they’ve only set up shop here around six months ago. They seem to focus mainly on epilepsy, which seems rather peculiar for such a little town. There can’t be that many people around here with that particular disease.” He hummed thoughtfully to himself. “I mean, it’s almost like they came here specifically for . . . Erica.” He swiveled around in the computer chair, about knocking his knees into Derek’s. “What if these facilities are popping up with intent? I thought they were just being built randomly, but there’s been a facility in each of the towns where people have gone missing, and they’re so far in between that people actually go missing.” He frowned at Derek. “They’re targeting these people.”

Derek mirrored his frown, “But they’re still accepting other patients, though aren’t they?” 

Stiles spun back around, typing furiously on the computer. “Well, I mean they have to keep up appearances, don’t they? It’d be odd if they never saw anyone else coming or going to appointments or doing tests or anything. I bet you they even have a few people that are just Argent Corps employees that either really do have the same symptoms or are just pretending. But they’d have to accept other real patients, too. I mean, even in a town as small as this one, it would be odd if only one person got accepted. And if everyone else is just slowly phased out, or they find out later that they don’t quite fit the criteria, then . . . no one’s the wiser. Just like Lydia.”

Derek pulled out Stiles laptop out of his bag, opening it up and pulling up Argent Corps webpage. “I’ll start at the bottom, and you start at the top?” He asked, knowing that Stiles would probably do well past his share of facilities. There was no way that he could keep up with Stiles’ researching speed. But Stiles only grinned at him, pulling his notebook closer and flipping to a new page.

 

\--

By the time the library had closed, they had gotten through nearly half of the list. Stiles had babbled about different people the whole ride back to the motel, but most of it went in one ear and out the other for Derek. His brain was swimming from all of the things he’d read today. He’d tried to make the same connections that Stiles could, but he didn’t have nearly as much info as the other Spark had gotten. 

They had gotten some fast food on the way back, and Derek picked at it as he thought over the things that he’d read. Stiles was furiously scribbling into one of his notebooks, periodically stopping to cram some food into his face. Derek tried to take a peek over at the page, but he couldn’t make heads or tales of the scribbles. “How do you keep track of that mess?” 

Stiles only gave him a half hearted head movement in reply for a long moment, still scribbling something furiously. Derek had gone back to silently eating the rest of his food by the time Stiles spoke. “I wasn’t lying when I told Boyd that I had ADHD. It’s partly because of my Spark,” he shoveled some more fries into his mouth as he lazily circled some of the words on his page. “My notes have always been sort’ve chaotic. When I’m researching I focus a little too hard?” He shrugged, the corner of his mouth turned up. “Sometimes my brain moves faster than I can write things down. A lot of this is shorthand, or keywords to jog my memory. Plus, my handwriting is god awful.” He set aside the notepad to pick at the remaining food. Derek pushed over the remainder of his fries. Stiles’ grin was worth the loss of the fries, and Derek found himself staring back down at the notepad. 

“Have any ideas about where we should go next?” Stiles shrugged, finally slowing down on the food. Derek automatically started to clean up the little table, throwing everything into the trash can and tying off the little bag. “There isn’t any other oddly specific facilities in rural areas?”

Stiles shook his head, “No, that isn’t it. There definitely is, but I can’t find anything that would help us specifically. No one that I can convince to talk to us or anything. I’m getting to the point where I’m stalling out.” He dramatically threw himself onto the bed. “We might have to wait until something else happens.” Derek could practically taste the discouragement settling around him. Setting his jaw, he picked up the bible sitting on the dresser beside him and tossed it onto Stiles’ stomach with a soft thump. “What the hell, Derek?” 

Folding himself gracefully on the floor, he gestured for Stiles to do the same. “Well, if we can’t go somewhere, we might as well work on your Spark.” Stiles groaned loudly, not moving from his spot. Derek waited for a few seconds before reaching up and tugging on Stiles foot to drag him off the bed. Grinning at the squawk that came from him as he fell, Derek grabbed the bible from where it fell on the floor. “Come on, you might as well try. I’m going to throw this at you whether you do or not.” Stiles groaned, but sat up and closed his eyes. Derek waited until he felt the now familiar tingle in his nose from the magic before he threw the bible. It made a resounding thump when it hit what seemed like air, if you weren’t looking quite close enough. Now that Derek was, he could nearly see a slight color difference in Stiles’ plaid over shirt. Almost as if it were . . . duller somehow. “You’ve gotten better.”

“I do try to practice.” Stiles grumbled, but he smelled faintly pleased. He handed Derek the bible back. They practised until Stiles tapped out, sprawled out on the floor. “We only have the room till tomorrow, right?” He watched Derek as he went through his nightly routine, making him feel oddly self conscious after all the time they’d spent in tight spaces already. Derek grunted at him before claiming the bathroom. He took the time brushing his teeth to settle the sudden nerves in his stomach. Stiles was already changed when Derek came back out, toothbrush in hand as he brushed past him, humming tunelessly to himself. Derek settled into one of the beds, laying and staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Stiles turned off the light, and spent several minutes shifting loudly. Derek had almost thought he’d gone to sleep, his heart beat finally settled into an almost normal rhythm for him when he spoke. “We should go somewhere else tomorrow. Anywhere. Maybe someone will come to us.”

\--

They stayed at another shitty hotel that night. “This place seriously smells.” Stiles said, hesitantly setting his bag down on the carpet. Derek gave him a dirty look, and he grimaced. It had to be so much worse for his nose. “Hey, so maybe I can try like a . . . magical Febreeze. What do you say? What would you rather be smelling right now?” He asked, wiggling his eyebrows. 

Derek just grunted at him, his shoulders tense. After a moment he let loose a long sigh, and he turned around. “Anything that has to do with trees?” He finally gritted out. Stiles nodded, sitting down on the bed cross legged and patting the bed beside him. Derek hesitantly sat on the bed, wrinkling his nose. 

“Alright, so you have to tell me if I’m on the right track.” Stiles said, closing his eyes and concentrating on the magic that had been trying to escape all day. He took a deep breath in and started thinking about the day he had barged into Derek’s life. The way the soil had smelled with the rain hitting it, the soft crunch of the leaves beneath his feet. He felt Derek relax beside him. “Guessing I’m doing this okay?” Derek let out a soft sound, laying back on the bed. Stiles opened his eyes and took another deep breath, pleased to find the awful scent of the motel room was gone. 

Derek was already starting to drift off, even in spite of the fact that he was half on and half off of the bed. Stiles nudged him, and Derek just groaned at him. Shrugging, he got up, rummaging through his clothes to find something clean. He frowned at the pile of dirty clothes beside his bag. “Good thing there’s a laundromat here.” He mumbled claiming the bathroom. The water pressure was surprisingly good, and he spent several minutes just standing under the spray. He heard a knock on the door, and he started finishing up. He jumped out of the shower, threw some boxers on and wandered out into the other room. He continued rummaging through his bag to try and find some clean clothes before huffing and turning around. He caught Derek staring intently at him, and Stiles raised an eyebrow at him. 

Derek flushed, muttering a quick, “Nothing,” and jumping into the bathroom and firmly shutting the door. Stiles gave up on trying to find something more to sleep in other than a thin undershirt and his boxers. He tried to turn on the ancient looking A/C unit, cursing when the thing only rumbled for a moment before ceasing to do anything. “Can’t win them all, I guess.” He mumbled as he flipped the control lid shut. He stripped off the heavy comforter off his bed and struggled with folding it for a few moments before giving up and throwing it onto the chair in the corner. 

He was laying in bed by the time Derek emerged from the bathroom. Derek hesitated glancing at Stiles just staring at the ceiling. “Can’t sleep?” He asked after he had found some sweats in his clothes. He sat across from Stiles in his own bed, watching him closely. “It is awfully hot in here.” 

“Don’t bother with the A/C. I doubt even my magic could fix it.” Derek raised an eyebrow, but busied himself with pulling off his own comforter and carefully folding it. Stiles snorted, a little irritated with how Derek seemed to do everything so easily. “How do you do it?” Stiles bit out. “How are you so much better at all of this than me? There’s not that much of an age difference between us.It’s not like you’ve gone through a world crisis.”

Derek finished the second blanket from the bed and setting it aside before answering. “I know you know about my family. What do you think I did for those first few years after they died?” Stiles stilled, barely even breathing as he thought about it. He know what he would have done if something like that happened to his dad. “This whole revenge thing isn’t new to me. I just couldn’t do it alone.” He laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling. 

Stiles rolled onto his side, staring intently at Derek. “I’m sorry.” He was quiet for a long moment before finally spitting out the words that he had been holding. “Do you know who did it?” He immediately regretted it, biting his lip. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. That’s obviously not my business.”

“Kate Argent.” Derek murmured lowly, breath a long sigh. 

Stiles shot up in bed, “Allison’s aunt? Seriously, she could not have been born into a worse family. She’s so sweet, too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, after her mom died it was a little sketchy there for a minute. The way she stared . . . But she’s never been anything but good to Scott.”

Derek turned his head to look at him, “Your friend was dating an Argent?” He asked with an unimpressed stare. Stiles snorted and shrugged his shoulders. “This just keeps getting more and more complicated.” 

Stiles snuggled further into the blankets, bunching them up around his neck. “So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Derek shrugged, rolling over to stare at Stiles. “Well, I don’t have any more contacts that I can wring out. How can it seriously be so damn hard to figure out where they are. Like they’re a multibillion corporation. Someone’s got to know where the hell they sneak off too at night.” Stiles shot up, “That’s it! We can lift some employee files from one of the newer facilities and raid the house of the sketchiest looking one on the payroll.” Stiles pulled the sheet back up to his chin, getting comfortable again. “Alright, rest up, big guy. We’re gonna have a long drive tomorrow. Murphy is going to make sure of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, Sorry this took so long. ^^" Also, was no one going to mention that I had them eating in the car and then they were magically in the hotel room?! I'll eventually fix that . . . I'm going to try to do better at updating! There's probably a ton of mistakes. It's 7 in the morning and I haven't been to bed yet.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles woke up to a shrill ringing in his ear, and he fumbled around on the nightstand until he grabbed his phone. He squinted at the caller id before reluctantly answering it. “Hello?” He mumbled into the receiver, flopping back down onto the pillow. He heard a few sniffles on the other end, but it was a long moment before they said anything. “Lydia?” He pulled away to look at the screen again. “Are you there? Is something wrong.”

She cleared her throat decisively, the tone of her voice still as distinctively hautey as it had been at the lunch. “There’s something wrong with J-Jackson.” Despite her efforts, it was still obvious that she had been crying. “I don’t know what kind of mood alterers they’ve been giving him, but I know that I don’t like them.”

Stiles was still trying to clear the fog from his head. “Didn’t you say that he was going through this for an advantage at sports?” He yawned, already feeling himself growing fuzzier. “They’re probably just giving him testosterone. It’s probably nothing.”

“I’ve known Jackson since kindergarten,” Lydia snapped, the bite in her voice clearing the last of the unsteadiness. “I’ve seen him through everything, from finding out he was adopted to when he nearly got kicked off the team for taking steroids. This is not Jackson.” Stiles finally sat up, leaning over to grab the little notepad off the nightstand. He caught Derek’s eyes in the process, the Spark leaning up and listening intently on the phone call as well. “He nearly broke my door in half, and it’s solid oak. Have you found out anything yet?”

“Sorry, Lydia. I don’t have anything to tell you. At this point I’m not even sure there is anything going on with the program.” 

“That’s a pitiful lie. When you have something conclusive for me, I expect a phone call. If something else changes with Jackson, I’ll let you know.” With that the phone clicked, and Stiles was left holding the phone in disbelief. How he ever thought she was just a vapid to be trophy wife was astounding at this point. He caught sight of the little clock in the corner of the screen and groaned. 

“Look, it’s too early for this. I’m officially dealing with it later,” Stiles grumbled, tossing his phone over on the night stand again and rolling on his side. Derek was staring at him with a perturbed look on his face. “What?”

“She said Jackson broke her door?” Derek’s eyebrows were nearly in a line in concern. “That’s definitely not normal. Even if Jackson was athletic that’s not something he should be able to do.”

“Nearly broke, she said. Maybe she’s just exaggerating because they got into a fight and she’s upset?” But it sounded weak even to him, especially with the Argents involved. He pulled the covers up over his head. “She was probably right. Something is wrong with him, then. But, there’s nothing to be done at three in the morning. Can we revisit this later?” He practically whined. He sighed in relief when he heard Derek shifting in the bed, peeking an eye out to see him laying back down. He drifted back into sleep in no time.

Despite sleeping for a few more hours, Stiles felt no more rested than he did when he had been awake earlier that morning. The knots in his stomach didn’t seem inclined to pass as he got ready for the day. Derek went through his morning routine quietly, obviously lost in thought, and Stiles was loathe to break the silence. Even if he felt like crawling out of his own skin. Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to calm himself, and he felt his magic bubbling inside of him. He pressed a hand against the little coffee pot on the counter, causing it to start brewing. 

Derek passed by on his way to the bathroom, but stopped before reaching it. His attention was caught on the unplugged in cord that led to the coffee pot. “How did you do that?” 

Stiles looked up, nearly surprised at the question. “It’s easy to do little things like this when I’m like this.” Derek raised an eyebrow at him, and Stiles shrugged. “I guess this is what I mean when I tell people that I have ADHD. It’s not the traditional form, but it’s excess energy nonetheless.” He held up his hand and made an image of a large gold coin appear, twirling it around his fingers. “Letting a little bit out at a time helps, but it makes it pretty hard to concentrate.” Derek nodded, then reached out and poured the now finished coffee into a cup and walking into the bathroom. “That was my magical coffee,” Stiles grumbled as he pushed a little more magic into the pot. 

They finished getting ready, and headed towards the local pawn shop. Stiles drifted through the aisles, looking for a suitable laptop. Derek trailed after him obediently, looking at different things but not really showing any interest in them. Stiles finally found one that wasn’t too beat up, and tried to haggle a charger in the price of the laptop. Derek wandered outside as he did, Stiles ignoring him in favor of going back and forth with the shop keeper. When he finally emerged triumphantly from the store, he made his way to the car, where Derek was leaning. “Got him to throw in the charger and take ten dollars off the price because it’s got a dent in the corner.” 

Derek took the laptop from him and tossed it into the back seat. “Come on, there’s a little bakery not too far from here that smells like it has really good muffins.” Grinning, Stiles trailed after Derek, barely containing the urge to make a dog joke. The bakery was quaint in the way that little towns often were, and it was thankfully not busy. Derek waited in line, eyeing the baked goods counter. Stiles went and claimed a seat in the back , picking two of the comfiest looking arm chairs to settle in. He was looking up some of the newest facilities to try and determine which ones might have the least amount of security. 

Derek came back with two large blueberry muffins, and was juggling two mugs of hot coffee. Stiles accepted the muffin and the coffee thankfully, taking a large sip. He was surprised when it was exactly the way he liked it, with just enough cream to offset the bitter edge and a hint of sweet. Derek ducked his head to look down at his own coffee. “We’re always in each others space. It’s not like it was difficult to remember how to take your coffee.” Stiles didn’t say anything, just smiled and picked at the muffin in front of him. Derek was slowly breaking pieces off to eat. “Blueberry muffins used to be the Sunday morning thing in our house.” Stiles slowly set his cup down, giving Derek his attention. “My mom and my Aunt Olivia would get up early and make up a few dozen blueberry muffins.” Derek rolled the last few blueberries around his plate.” 

Stiles was quiet for a moment, both of them looking down into their coffee. “My mom used to make chocolate chip pancakes on the mornings she had off. Now I only make them on her birthday.” Stiles replied, picking out all of the blueberries in his muffin. He caught Derek looking at him still, so he ducked his gaze and did a little half shrug. “I just meant . . . I get it.” Derek nodded back, and they sat with the quiet noises of the bakery around them. Stiles pushed the plate out of the way so he could pull out the lap top. He pulled up a few more of the smaller facilities to see which ones he had an interest in. 

“There’s one that’s fairly new,” He murmured to Derek, “And it’s not terribly too far away. But it is further north.” He grimaced, rubbing his arms absently. “I guess I’m going to have to figure out a way to keep myself warm.” He spent the next hour to find a way into their employment records. Derek kept refilling his coffee mug, occasionally bringing back pastries as well. Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin when something hit him in the forehead, and he looked down to see a blueberry resting on the table innocently. 

“Didn’t we say that we’d work on your shield skills? Derek asked, holding up another blueberry. Stiles gave him a look, but Derek just threw the berry at him anyways. It hit Stiles square in the nose, leaving a small smear in its wake. “It’s not going to be of any use to you if you have to concentrate too hard to keep it up.” Stiles grumbled a little, but did see the logic in it. He wiped at his nose and pulled the laptop out of his bag. 

Everytime he started to fall into the research, Derek would throw something else at him. A bit of napkin, the straw wrapper for the smoothie that was now sitting in front of Derek, leftover blueberries still strewn about the table. Stiles huffed everytime he was interrupted, but tried to keep the shield up. The only problem was that every time something caught his interest, the shield dropped. And it was like Derek knew every time it did. “Ok, can you see the shield or something?” Stiles angrily whispered the third time something caught him in the face. “Is there like, a shimmer in the air or something that’s giving me away?”

Derek shook his head, a wry grin on his face. “I can tell from your expression. You start biting your lip every time you’ve lost your concentration to something else.” Stiles guiltily let go of his lip, not even realizing that he had it in his mouth. “You’ve really got to keep it second nature to throw up a shield. It’s entirely possible that we’ll be shot at before this is all over.” Stiles shuddered, thinking about the news article on Derek’s family. As if Derek could tell what he was thinking about, he abruptly switched topics. “So have you found anything yet?”

“There’s another place we could visit. There’s another woman that’s gone missing. A painter from what I can tell. She’s got a kind of cult following online, they’re swearing up and down that her paintings preclude to disasters.” He spun the laptop around to scroll through some of her works. “I mean, she’s mostly just painting landscapes. There’s no portraits that I can tell, and there’s no unrealistic paintings. They’re . . . scarily realistic actually. I looked up in the registry, and she is a registered Spark. Plus, it’s on the way to a little clinic that I’d like to try to get into.” Stiles glanced around them to see if there were any prying ears, but everyone seemed preoccupied in their own conversations. “It gives me a little more time to do some research.” 

Derek agreed placidly, and once Stiles’ attention was back on the laptop, he threw another blueberry at him. Stiles blinked in surprise as the berry bounced off his shield. “You’re getting better,” Derek praised as Stiles started preening. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not still ambushing you. Just because you can reflect something small doesn’t mean you can reflect something that has a lot of force behind it.”

“We shouldn’t have to deal with anything like that as long as we’re careful. It’s not like I want to have a confrontation with anyone.” All he wanted was his best friend back. Derek looked down at his lap, but didn’t argue. The mood now soured, Stiles shoved the laptop back into the bag and stood up. “Well, let’s get on the road, yeah?” 

Derek followed him to the car, the beginning of the ride nearly uncomfortably quiet. He could tell that Stiles was more in his mind than anything else. He hesitantly rested a hand on Stiles shoulder, “We’ll find him.” Stiles gave him a weak smile, most of the tension seeping out of his body. Stiles fell back into his notebooks, muttering softly to himself as he tried to connect the dots. 

True to his word, the town the artist was from really was on the way. It nearly marked the halfway point to the little facility that they were actually planning on heading to. Stiles had fallen asleep, but he jerked up when Derek shook him. “Whazzit?” He slurred, rubbing a hand at his eyes. “Are we there?” He blinked at their surroundings, as if looking for something familiar. “There’s a gallery on Court Street.” Nodding, started driving again, thinking that they might have passed the gallery once already.

The town was smaller than any of the others they had been to, just barely two main streets and some housing. The gallery was easy enough to find, and a bored attendant waved them through the doors without much more than a glance. Stiles was finally fully awake now that they were up and moving, and he flitted between the different landscapes excitedly. Derek followed at a more sedate pace, taking the time to really look at the paintings. They really were hyper realistic; if it weren’t for some of the brush strokes, he wouldn’t have been able to distinguish them from photographs. “These are all real places?” Derek inquired as Stiles wandered by him. “Are they places she’s visited?”

“Dunno,” Stiles practically bounced as he settled beside him. “I mean, yeah, they’re all real places, but there’s no way to tell if she’s been there without asking.” He suddenly squinted closer at the painting in front of them, taking a couple of steps closer and inspecting a corner. “Hang on, give me your phone.” Derek dutifully handed it over, waiting as Stiles looked up whatever he needed to know. Stiles narrowed his eyes after a moment, taking Derek’s hand and all but pulling him out of the gallery. “Come on, we need to break into her house.” 

Thankfully the artist had her address on her website, and it was out in the middle of nowhere. It seemed that she enjoyed her privacy. Stiles politely knocked on the door and waited for Derek’s approval before bending down and picking the lock with a set of lockpicks he had pulled from somewhere. Once they were inside, Derek lifted his nose. “It smells like nothing but paint.” He complained. It wasn’t surprising, there were cans of paint everywhere. On the counters, the floor, nearly all the nooks and crannies of the house. Stiles was silently observing, wandering around the house. Derek just followed him quietly, wondering what it was that they were looking for. 

Her studio was in the attic, and there were stacks upon stacks of paintings there. Stiles started sifting through the piles, occasionally stopping to inspect some of them closer. Derek didn’t see anything of real interest in the paintings. “Look at this,” Stiles pulled out several of the paintings and set them side by side. “These are all of the new Argent buildings that have popped up within the last couple of years.” At Derek’s nonplussed nod, he continued. “But look at the date on these, she painted them every bit of five years ago. There was no way she could have known, unless she was a Spark. I think all those theorists on the web weren’t as cracked out as I thought they were.” 

Derek ran a hand over his face, trying to absorb the information. Every time they tried to find answers, at least ten more questions came up. A familiar logo caught his eye on the desk beside him, and he pulled out the envelope. He opened up the letter with a tired sigh. “Looks like the Argents were trying to get a hold of her, too.” He passed the letter over to Stiles to read. “I think they’re getting a little more aggressive with their mailing system.” He set his mouth into a grim line as he sifted through the rest of the piled up mail. “Look, there’s a letter here from that other Spark.” Derek skimmed through the letter before handing it over. Vincent was warning her about Argent Corps, about how they were trying to ‘recruit him.’ “Doesn’t look like his warning did a whole lot of good . . . “ Derek murmured, looking around the empty house and the dust settled on everything.

Stiles tossed the letter back down onto the table, taking Derek’s hand and leading him out of the house. “I think I need a break. This is too fucking much. Nothing is making any goddamn sense.” Stiles all but threw himself into the car, leaning back and closing his eyes. Unsure of how exactly to help, Derek just started the car and started driving. It was nearly unbearably quiet again, so he turned the radio on, just loud enough to be heard. Stiles hand drifted over to the radio and it started shuffling through the stations. The familiar tickle of magic filled Derek’s nose, and he tried to ignore it. But the stations wouldn’t stay for longer than a few seconds at a time, and it was starting to wear on his nerves. 

“Stiles,” he barked, his grip on the steering wheel white knuckled. “Can you please stop that?”   
Stiles dropped his hand as if he were shocked, his eyes narrowing. Derek regretted his harsh tone almost immediately. 

“I’m sorry that I’m bothering you, but I’ve got to let my magic out somehow or I’ll go nuts trapped in this car.” Stiles bit out, his jaw tense. “So, unless you’ve got a better idea to do that, because this is all I’ve got.” Derek didn’t say anything, and Stiles went back to changing the stations. 

The next exit they came across that advertised a motel, Derek got off the highway. He went inside to get the room by himself, leaving Stiles to the still rapidly changing radio. The younger man was still moody as they carried their things inside. “Sorry.” Derek hunched his shoulders as they unpacked what little they needed. “I know this isn’t much better than the car as far as space goes.” 

Stiles stared at him for a long, uncomfortable moment before deflating slowly. “I know it’s not your fault, big guy. I’ve just never done well with car rides.” He wrinkled his nose as he looked down at the ugly bedspread. “When I was younger, my parents had to plan, like, specific stops whenever they took me someplace far away. Otherwise I’d drive all of us up a wall.” He flopped down on the bed, face first so that his words were muffled. “Knowing that I’ve gotta help Scott helps, a little, but there’s still only so much I can take.” Derek didn’t say anything, quietly smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothes. Stiles rolled over, staring at the ceiling for a moment before standing up and claiming the bathroom. 

By the time he emerged, hair damp and his skin radiating warmth, Derek was the one who was filled with unspent energy. “You up for another short car ride tonight?” Stiles eyed him warily, but shrugged his shoulders. Derek herded him back to the car and just started driving. He parked in the very back of a national park, hiding the car behind some low hanging trees. “Come on, we’re going to play tag.” 

Stiles stopped dead in his tracks, looking at Derek’s very serious face. “You’re kidding, right? You’re, like, the most serious person I’ve ever met.” 

Shaking his head, a grin on his face, Derek led him deeper into the forest. “We’re going to work on your shields, too. Multi tasking.” Stiles laughed aloud, the knot in his stomach starting to ease a little. “I’ll be it first,” Derek took a few steps back, “And I’ll be nice enough to give you a few minutes head start.” 

“Oh, gee. What a hero,” Stiles snarked, looking around and starting to form the shield around him. He tried his hardest not to think of an actual shield and more of a bubble. He had a feeling that Derek wasn’t going to take it easy on him. “It only counts if you actually touch me!” He shouted before taking off into the trees. It was hard to keep the shield up and not trip over any of the underbrush or any of the low hanging branches. He absently wondered how good Derek’s sense of smell was, how far he could track him. All too soon he heard tree branches snap behind him, and he just barely dodged Derek’s swipe at him, his hand just barely bouncing off his shield. “Nice try,” he laughed, stopping short and watching Derek slide past him.

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten started yet,” Derek promised, grinning toothily and lunging at him again. “You’re not going to be able to outrun me for long.” 

 

“Cocky,” Stiles spat as he watched Derek’s hand bounce off of his shield again. He pushed with his magic knocked loose the flowers from the tree above them. He took off running again, hoping that the floral scent might distract Derek’s nose for a moment. He hadn’t gotten very far again before he felt something bounce off of his shield again, pushing him forward a few clumsy steps. He darted a glance behind him at Derek, who didn’t even have the decency to look a little bit winded. “Look, my magic doesn’t translate into athletic ability!” he protested, and then his foot got caught in a tree root, and he fell. Throwing his arms in front of him, he was surprised when he didn’t plant face first into the dirt. His shield was intact, somehow, and he was resting a few inches above the ground. 

Derek stood triumphantly overtop of him, grinning widely as he reached down to touch him. He frowned when he met the shield. He narrowed his eyes. “You’ll run out of magic eventually,” he decided, and flopped on top of the shield. Stiles felt the man’s weight push him a little deeper into the dirt. The added pressure actually did strain his Spark a little, and he could only hold it for a few more moments before he dropped it, and Derek fell on top of him. “Gotcha.” Stiles grumbled under his breath about cheating, but couldn’t deny that he did feel better. In fact, this was probably the best he’d felt in weeks. He started wiggling and started protesting loudly about Derek’s heft laying on top of him until he finally got up, extending a hand down to help him up as well. “Your shield lasted a lot longer than I thought.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Stiles proclaimed, clutching his chest dramatically, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Despite not having a proper teacher, I think we’re muddling through this just fine.” He followed Derek back to the car, thankful that he seemed to know where he was going. “So just how good is your nose?” Derek rolled his eyes, climbing onto the hood and gesturing for Stiles to do the same. “No, seriously. Like, how far away could you smell me? And what are we doing on top of the car?”

Sighing, Derek laid back against the windshield. “Well, considering we’ve basically been living in each other’s pocket for the last few weeks, I could probably find you anywhere in this forest?” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I know your scent better than anyone’s, and it doesn’t help that you pretty much smell like me, too.” Stiles leaned back as well, contemplating quietly. “And there’s a meteor shower tonight. I figured this would be a good place to watch it.” 

No sooner had he spoke, the stars started falling above them in a brilliant light show. There wasn’t any light pollution, and it made the stars shine all the brighter. 

They watched in silence for a while, before Stiles leaned his shoulder up against Derek’s. “Thanks,” he murmured, darting a glance over before resolutely looking up at the sky. “I really needed this.” Derek didn’t say anything back, just pressed his shoulder against Stiles a little more firmly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm so bad at updating. I'm sorry. This is probably all wonky, as I wrote both halves of these really far apart? And I have a really bad habit of only writing when I haven't slept and it's early morning. And I'm seeing all kinds of continuity errors, so thanks for bearing through that with me. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! Please leave some kind words for me to wake up to!

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first fic in the fandom. Not beta'd, so I'm sorry if there's a ton of mistakes. No schedule on when I'll post updates, sorry! Leave some feedback?


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